Apple has promoted a technology from an innovation to an absolutely necessary feature on mobile devices with its iPhone, so people will be able to toss through pictures with a flick of a finger or make a document larger by pressing two fingers against the screen and extending them.
Hence, personal computer manufacturers and software makers today hope to do more with touch on larger devices by giving people a 10-fingered go at their screens, even we do not have to operate our TV with two fingers because we will need more than two fingers in order to feel really natural.
The PC industry hopes the feature spurs sales, as PC makers like Hewlett-Packard and Dell have been clobbered during the recession as struggling businesses drop laptop computers upgrades to the bottom of their to-do lists. Consumers have shown more interest in new machines, but they are buying cheap, tiny laptops rather than decked-out goliaths.
At the same time, HP, Dell, Intel and Microsoft expect that when companies and consumers increase their spending, touch technology will be one of the things that nudge them to upgrade. Computers with the special screens will probably cost consumers about $100 more than standard machines.
HP has been selling a PC with an early version of touch technology. The TouchSmart PC which is priced at US$1,150 has been popular, the company says, particularly in kitchens as a family computer. But outside of science-fiction films, touch computers have been met with lukewarm reactions. Tabletlike computers that ship with plastic pens for marking on screens remain a niche in the overall PC market, as do pure touch machines. Mr. Ben-David said that about two million of about 300 million PCs sold last year were touch computers.
Even the company has been pushing touch technology to large businesses. It sells a custom touch interface for both desktops and laptops. Customers can turn these machines into bespoke kiosks for, say, ordering merchandise at a sporting event or flipping through a menu while waiting at a restaurant.
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